1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and article of manufacture for generating information on application tasks for component objects grouped in a composite object.
2. Description of the Related Art
A composite object appears as a single entity and may contain one or more component objects. For example, a ZIP file, which is a file in a lossless data compression and archival format, appears to be a single entity, and can be treated as a single file for file management purposes, but may contain several other objects of different types. The objects in a ZIP file may be diverse in nature or related. When looked at individually, the contained objects could be bound to other related objects or to applications that operate on the component object. For example, a .jpg file (Joint Photographic Experts Group file format), could be bound to other image objects (i.e. other .jpg, .bmp (bitmap) or .gif (Graphics Interchange Format) files), or to tasks (such as a picture viewer, Internet browser, etc.)
When presented with a composite object, user interfaces present tasks that may be performed with respect to the composite object, but not for the component objects within the composite object. A user typically must expand a composite object (e.g., a ZIP file) before being presented with a list of targets or tasks that could be bound to one or more of the component objects. FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art graphical user interface (GUI) 2 displaying a context menu 4 for a selected ZIP file that shows tasks to operate on the ZIP file 6. FIG. 2 illustrates a prior art implementation of a GUI 20 displayed for a composite object comprising a metric group having common component metrics comprising measurements of system output, such as performance, utilization, etc. A context menu 24 displays application tasks relevant to a composite object of metrics, such as “Common Metrics” 22.
There is a need in the art for an improved technique for providing information on a composite object and its component objects and utilizing such information when managing a composite object and component objects grouped therein.